Ex-Ill. Gov. Edgar Won't Run for Senate

Published 8:00 pm, Thursday, May 8, 2003

Associated Press Writer

Rejecting pleas from President Bush and the nation's top Republicans, former Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar announced Friday he will not run for the U.S. Senate in 2004.

"You never want to say no to the president," Edgar told reporters at a hastily called news conference. Still, the popular former governor said a career in the Senate would intrude on the life he has carved out since he left the statehouse four years ago.

Edgar had been considered the Republicans' top choice to succeed incumbent GOP Sen. Peter Fitzgerald, who recently announced that he will not seek re-election after one term.

Republican leaders, from Bush to White House political adviser Karl Rove to members of the GOP leadership in the Senate, had urged Edgar to run after Fitzgerald's surprise announcement set off a scramble to find a strong GOP candidate. Edgar quickly emerged as the consensus choice.

Illinois Republicans are mired in a wide-ranging scandal over bribery and other political corruption under former Gov. George Ryan. Democrats swept all but one of the statewide races last fall and control both houses of the state legislature.

Edgar remained widely popular, and Republicans had argued that his candidacy might allow them to overcome the party's black eye.

Edgar said he thinks the one statewide candidate who survived last fall's GOP debacle, state Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka, would make the best Senate candidate and would have a good chance of winning.

"If she's not the candidate, I don't think the race is over," Edgar said. He said there were many talented, if unknown, Republicans who could run.

Brenda Edgar, who has never made a secret of her disdain for politics, stood by the former governor's side as he made his announcement. Edgar called his decision a "Mother's Day present" to his wife.

He did say he has not ruled out a future bid for public office.

Edgar was encouraged to run for the Senate in 2002 and was seriously considering a run in 1998 before announcing he would retire from politics at the end of his second term as governor in January 1999.

At the time, Edgar, now 56, conceded his health was a factor; he underwent quadruple bypass heart surgery in 1994, just before he won his second term.

There is no declared GOP candidate, but possible candidates include former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan and Topinka, who is chairwoman of the state GOP.

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Democratic challengers began lining up last year, and include former Chicago school board president Gery Chico, multimillionaire businessman Blair Hull, state Comptroller Dan Hynes, state Sen. Barack Obama, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, businesswoman Joyce Washington and Metamora Mayor Matt O'Shea, a Republican who says he will run as a Democrat.